Deuteronomy 31:22

Summary

The verse reports that Moses wrote down "this song" on "that day" and then taught it to the people of Israel. It is a narrative summary statement marking the completion of the song's composition and its transmission to the nation.

Key words

• va-yikhTov ("and he wrote down", H3789) — qal narrative form with vav; marks a sequential past action, "and then he wrote."
• ha-shiRah ha-Zot ("the song, this", H7892B + H2063) — definite noun followed by demonstrative, pointing to a specific, previously mentioned song.
• ba-yYom ha-Hu' ("on that day", H3117G + H1931) — prepositional phrase with definite article and demonstrative pronoun, anchoring the action to a specific day.
• va-yelamMedah ("and he taught it", H3925G) — piel narrative verb with 3rd feminine singular suffix -ah ("her/it"), referring back to ha-shiRah (feminine noun); piel stem carries an intensive/causative nuance ("to cause to learn," i.e., "to teach").
• beNei ("sons/people of", H1121G) — masculine plural construct noun, forming the phrase "sons of Israel" with the following proper name.

What the text says

The verse contains two coordinated narrative clauses linked by the vav-consecutive construction, a standard Biblical Hebrew device for sequential storytelling: first va-yikhTov ("and he wrote"), then va-yelamMedah ("and he taught it"). Both verbs have Moses as subject, though his name moSheh (H4872) appears only with the first verb; the second verb's subject is understood by continuity of the narrative chain.

The object of the first verb, et-ha-shiRah ha-Zot ("this song"), is marked by the direct object particle 'et (H0853, untranslated) and specified by the demonstrative ha-Zot ("this"), indicating that the song has already been introduced earlier in the discourse. The temporal phrase ba-yYom ha-Hu' ("on that day") uses the demonstrative hu' to point back to a day already established in context, rather than naming a new one.

In the second clause, the object "it" is expressed only through the pronominal suffix -ah attached to va-yelamMedah, agreeing grammatically with the feminine noun shiRah ("song"). The recipients are et-beNei Yisra'El, "the people/sons of Israel," using the construct noun beNei ("sons of") followed by the proper name Yisra'El.

Differences between versions

The LXX and Vulgate render the sequence similarly but compress some elements: the Vulgate's Scripsit ergo Moyses canticum, et docuit filios Israël omits explicit mention of "that day" and "this song" as a demonstrative phrase, simply stating "Moses wrote the song." The LXX (ἔγραψεν Μωυσῆς τὴν ᾠδὴν ταύτην ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ) preserves "this song" and "that day" more closely to the Hebrew structure, matching the demonstrative pronouns present in the Hebrew text.